📢 WELCOME TO THE KING OF IRON FIST TOURNAMENT 📢
Durya! 😤
Today we're covering a game that made a franchise. Whenever we cover titles with such influence it's always fun to discover just what made them such hits to begin with. This is going to be a glowing piece, so not much if any criticism. But for those that have actually played this gem back in the day, they would be scratching their head at the thought of criticizing it.
It's that damn perfect. 💯
And so❗️ In this edition of Through the Lens 🎞, we'll be taking a look at BANDAI NAMCO's 3D fighting game hit from 1997: Tekken 3 Roll it! 📽
🔷 UP TOP 🔶
Tekken, as a franchise, is known to have the most bomb music out there. It's so bomb in fact people have played it at clubs and festivals for years. I personally am a huge fan of it. And it all starts here, at least for public perception-wise. Techno, trance, and melodic pieces are everywhere. All designed to get your blood pumping and ready to start a fight with the first bear you see. // if that last statement doesn't make sense then you've clearly never played Tekken before
I played Tekken 3 throughout my childhood. It is the game that introduced me to fighting games, a love I hold to this very day. I never owned a PlayStation 1, but I remember playing this game whenever I had the chance to, at neighbor's houses, at arcades, you name it. And yes, I was awful bad like 90% of Tekken players. But back then, when you were discovering something for the first time, it didn't matter.
Let's discuss what made this installment in the franchise the thing that blew everything out of the water.
🔷 3D 🔶
Tekken is a 3D fighting franchise, and that means more than you think if you aren't familiar with the fighting game genre. You see, most fighting games are 2D, meaning you can go left-right, up-down, but not side-to-side, i.e. towards the screen and further back from it.
As you can imagine this adds an entirely different dimension to the game. It allows for tracking moves and side-steppable moves. The complexity just ramps up substantially, and Tekken is the only 3D fighting franchise still active. All the others - Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Smash - are 2D fighters.
While Tekken 3 doesn't have side-walking yet, it still has a plethora of moves that are still present in Tekken 7 (and probably 8). This coherence between titles is what makes Tekken the most legacy fighting game out there.
And yes, nobody used the 3D aspects of this game. 😅 Heck, I'm playing Tekken 7 ranked and nobody uses them there either. It's hard enough to play this game in two dimensions, you add the third and it becomes a nightmare.
🔷 CAST OF CHARACTERS 🔶
In Tekken 3 the roster starts to resemble that of today's games. It is the first major mix-up of fighters that we see, and it sets the stage for Tekken's familiar faces for years to come.
This is where we get introduced to our titular main character - Jin. He will become the franchise's go-to protagonist henceforth. He and Kazuya's rivalry exists even in the newest Tekken 8 installment. And other rivalries such as Paul-Law and Hwoarang-Jin exist to this very day.
And yes, the new character list is insane, especially when you consider how many of these become staples in the FGC. I'll list off only the important additions: Hwoarang, Eddy, Gunjack, Julia, Kuma/Panda, Law, King, and Xiaoyu.
I mean that list is insane.There have never been as many staples added to a game as there were with Tekken 3.
🔷 GAME MODES 🔶
Tekken 3 tried out a lot of stuff and saw what could stick. Most of it didn't, 😅 but we appreciate the innovation!
Apart from your standard versus mode and the campaign there were two brand new game modes - Tekken Ball and Tekken Force. First though, the campaign works the same way as it does in other Tekken titles. You pick your character and then go through ten fighters to win the tournament. Once you win you get a short cutscene and that's it, you've beaten the game with said character. A new character unlocks for you to play and so on. Beat the game with every character to unlock the full roster.
Unlocking characters might seem crazy today but back then it was the norm. Today I know it's mostly you either have to buy said character or you are locked out of using them forever. So what about those other game modes we talked about?
Tekken Ball was this fun mode here you would do moves to a ball to make it spike on the opponent's side of the screen. In other words, it's just beach volleyball. 😁 I remember having so much fun playing this, I wish this game mode came back.
Tekken Force was this mode where you played as Jin in a 3D person beat-em-up style. It was very unique and nothing in the franchise has come close to it since. It was fun, but kind of hard and kind of repetitive. Honestly, I see why they didn't bring this one back.
🔷 LEGACY 🔶
Top 10 in the most sold PlayStation games of all time list? Yeah, I'd say that's impressive.
For many people, this is the title that introduced them to Tekken. A franchise that stands toe-to-toe with the other great fighting games. The best spectator fighting game out there and the most complicated, hands down. // not that complexity is inherently a good/bad thing btw, but facts are facts
Tekken 3 will be remembered in the annals of gaming lore forever more. A pretty clean slam dunk into the gaming Hall of Fame. And a soundtrack that brings me back to CTR TVs, internet cafes, and broken gamepads. Good times.
Thank you for reading, you rock! (and maybe roll) 👏👏👏
Shout-out to the 🍕PIZZA🍕 gang, 🤙 gang. 🤙
I've been playing a lot of Tekken 7 recently, hence this review. 😅 At first I thought about doing a Tekken 7 column, but I think (?) I did that one already. Not sure. If I haven't that will be my next piece. If I have... 🤷♂️ God's speed! 😁
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Hope you are having a fantastic day! 🙌